A robot that picks up after me and the cats? I'll take it!

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After a night spent plugged into his charging brick, Roomba is all fired up and ready to go. Jonathan has provisionally named him "Boomer" (bonus points if you can figure out what TV show we were watching over the holidays), despite the fact that Roomba is neither female nor a hotshot space pilot. I carry Roomba into the den, set him down, and take a moment to look at the cats, snoozing peacefully after a dinner of Christmas goose and blissfully unaware of the terror about to be unleashed on them.

When Boomer comes on, he whirls around and plays a few happy MIDI notes, kind of like: "Hay guys, what's going on in this house?" Tux opens one baleful eye, looks at the big red disc on the floor, and goes back to sleep, but Tuffy immediately goes on DEFCON 1.

"Sorry, guys," I tell them with my fingers crossed behind my back, and hit the CLEAN button. I swear, Boomer sits up, goes into a mad little pirouette and zeroes in on Tuffy, who promptly trees himself on top of the armchair. Tux, still groggy from sleep, falls off the couch and makes a mad dash for the bedroom, at which time Boomer zips out from under the coffee table and heads him off in the hallway. Cornered, Tux screeches to a halt, turns around, and scrambles back into the living room, where he tries to hide himself in the tangle of wires, controllers and consoles we like to call our entertainment center.